Windows & Veeam Availability suite upgrade

[gpontikakos]

Hello All,

I am looking for resources on how to upgrade our backup server. Our current configuration is Veeam Availability suite version 9.0, update 2 for B&R and update 1 for Veeam One with SQL Express 2012 on a physical windows server 2012R2 machine. Two hard disks in RAID1 for the OS and Veeam suite and six hard disks in RAID5 for the backup repository with data deduplication enabled.
What I would like to do is to format the OS volume and have a fresh install of Windows server 2016, then install Veeam availability suite 9.5 with SQL 2014.
My concern is how to backup and restore the configuration of B&R and ONE, including the backup jobs and historical data, how the backup repository will be seen in the installation to continue the backup jobs with the current backup chains and how the OS will behave with the volume being already deduplicated.
Any suggestions or resources describing similar upgrades would be appreciated.

Thank you,

George

[foggy]

Hi George, you can backup and restore Veeam B&R configuration using the built-in functionality. After restoring configuration into the new Veeam B&R installation, it will see the backup repository and will be able to continue the jobs normally. Deduplication shouldn't cause any issues as well, since the new OS will see the volumes deduplicated by the previous one.

[jmmarton]

For the Veeam ONE side, simply detach the database, copy it somewhere, and after reinstalling you should be able to attach the database to the new SQL 2014 install.

Joe

[gpontikakos]

Thank you for your replies @jmmarton and @foggy.
Does detaching and reattaching the database work from sql express to full sql installation?

[jmmarton]

Yup. The only concern would be detaching it from a newer version of SQL and reattaching to an older version. In your case you're doing the opposite so you should be ok. Or better yet, use the default SQL Express 2012 instance that VBR installs, reattach the database to it, then do the SQL Express 2014 upgrade.

Joe

[gpontikakos]

I did a test installation in a lab environment vm with the Veeam One in version 9.5 and it couldn't connect to the database. I found the https://www.veeam.com/kb1599 and it states that "Should the database be connected to a different Veeam One installation, make sure there is no version\build mismatch. Otherwise, the application will fail." So my guess is that I have to upgrade my Veeam One monitor server to version 9.5 before doing a fresh installation in order to move the database to the new installation.